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One of the biggest debates about the end times and Armageddon is the debate of whether the church will be raptured before the great tribulation or after the great tribulation. In fact people have gone as far as to say that those who preach a “pre-trib” rapture are false prophets and are hurting the Christians and their faith today.

The problem however, is that we as a church body are allowing something so minute to separate us. I mean there are a ton of arguments for both sides of the debate, and whether the one is right and the other is wrong does not make any difference whatsoever.

I want you to understand something. The timeline of the rapture in my opinion is one of the last things we should be thinking about right now. It doesn’t matter whether its pre-trib or post-trib.

What matters is the fact that Jesus Christ is coming back for His church. What also matters is that we are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to all those who are lost and do not believe in Him. In fact that is our great commission according to Matthew 28:19,20:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Everybody will have their own opinions and views about the small minor details of the Bible, but as long as the basis of their doctrine is preaching that God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to earth to die for our sins. That He rose again 3 days later, and now sits at the right hand of God and That it is only through Jesus Christ that you can be made right with God and can enter heaven, then we should not be getting hung up on these small differences of opinion and allowing it to break apart the Church of Christ.

Here is a great video that will help to give you a better understanding of the rapture:

I believe that the basic reason why there is no Bible verse that literally tells the exact timing of the rapture is because God never intended or wanted our main focus to be on the rapture. Rather He wanted us to have the truth of His coming as a promise that would encourage us and would help to build us up to continuing to share the gospel to all of those who are lost, no matter how bad the times got.

The problem with focusing on a pre-trib rapture is that we begin to have an attitude where all of these signs don’t mean anything to us or matter to us because we won’t be here anyways. This in turn causes a spiritual slumber in which we don’t push the gospel as hard as we could and we basically just bide our time on earth here until the rapture comes.

On the other hand those who focus on the post-trib rapture can tend to become overwhelmed or distracted by all that is coming over the earth and instead of being bold and sharing the gospel, they can become fearful and discouraged and lose sight of their call.

It is more important now than ever before as we see so many signs pointing towards the coming of Jesus Christ that we work harder than ever to share the gospel around the world. We are entering a time where the Holy Spirit will be poured out over all the nations of the earth and many will become saved.

Joel 2: 28,29 “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

Let us not lose sight of the importance of getting people saved for a promise that we know is going to happen regardless of timing.